I thought I’d write this all out while it was clear in my mind, and that way the Inquisition has a record and my notes are complete (also I can try and submit some sort of ridiculous bill for being a scribe-monkey so I can waste any resulting proceeds on drink and bad habits). As always people should feel free to add in any bits I may have missed.

To start at the end, for people who don’t like reading (Snow); Louhi the Exalted Darkness is dead, all the major anomalies are resolved, Port Miere is returning through the ‘nacht and will reconverge with Primus over the Dawn, and has been considerably strengthened by all the actions during the year.

We, which is to say myself, Morgan, Harley, Zaton, Dusk, Snow, Jacoby, Ignatius, Larkin and a person we hadn’t met before named Khaled from Ishma, met with Romilda (the former Inquisitor Wilton) at the waystation, ate some breakfast and worked out a plan. Dusk wrote an agreement with the Watcher of the Ages to offer Louhi a way to the Island in order for him to pursue Achramas, the idea being that we would be sent to the Island by Romilda / Asa Volki, track down Louhi, and would when we were in Louhi’s presence notify Romilda so that she could use the map to transport us to Salas’ ritual chamber where some wards would immediately be erected, making it hard for him to escape to give us time to kill him, resolving the final anomaly.

And this is broadly what we did. The Island was singularly unpleasant, being the abode of a sleeping Great Old One, a creature of insanity and destruction, which had twisted the landscape to reflect its dreams. The Chosen Five had been sent there by the Reaver Lord when children and it was there that they had become who they were; throughout the Island we found things that they had left behind them when they lived there.

We tried to follow Achramas across the Island, fighting its denizens, of particular note a very powerful death knight that had bound the soul of a man named Edward Allen to its shield when it was summoned after his resurrection went wrong, and which was thus shielded from all manner of things, and needed to be banished, fought and then restored to life. It wasn’t especially hostile to us once its control had been removed (targeting the shield), but was sufficiently dangerous that we weren’t going to allow it to go free. We removed a rite that was draining power from us and feeding it to some creature, at that time unknown (but which subsequently turned out to be the divinity sleeping in the Island). Other creatures present were golems the Chosen had made to protect themselves, and various twisted insane minions of a creature we will call T, the avatar of the sleeping Great Old One, which we will call Ybog; probably best to think of it as an especially potent and evil crazed divine illithid. Speaking the proper names of either of these creatures was an incredibly bad idea, so we didn’t do it. The creatures under its command were all of the tentacles and ichor variety which will be familiar to anyone who has had the misfortune to tangle with the Church of Lost Salvation or any number of other crazy cults.

The Chosen had fled from T, which had pursued them with its minions and in person, to the Labyrinth underneath the Island, which was the brain of the sleeping Ybog. Achramas had in turn fled to the Labyrinth as she felt she would be safe there. We found notes written by her which indicated that she was losing her mind and confused about whether she was on the Island as a child or now, or in the future, fleeing T or Louhi. She was concerned that we had made a mistake which had allowed Louhi to escape (the very idea) and that she would like her siblings be consumed by Louhi, and to that end had created an artefact that could be used to kill herself if the need arose. At the entrance to the Labyrinth we found a warning about it, along with more things that the Chosen had left behind, seeming to indicate that Louhi had loved Achramas rather than seeing her as a sibling, in a way which might go some further way to explain why he had been so betrayed when she chose to serve Asa as himself rather than as the Reaver Lord. None of which justified any of the bit where he gave himself over to Certizal, did all sort of horrible things and murdered the other Chosen and consumed their souls, but he’s dead now so there it is.

We followed Achramas into the Labyrinth that was Ybog’s brain, feeling a shadow that was Louhi rush past us as we opened it. The Labyrinth was a series of chambers separate from each other, each filled with different demonic creatures and containing a key that needed to be countered or destroyed in some way to enable eventual exit from the Labyrinth. After some time we had resolved all of these and were able to follow Achramas on into the centre of Ybog’s mind, which contained cultists, more of the mad demon creatures, bone demons and a dead illithid killed by Louhi on his way through, together with its revenant. I don’t think we ever found T, and I’d like to know where it is as I have a real dislike of loose ends – one for you Dusk?

After dispatching the revenant we were able to fight our way to the centre of Ybog’s brain, where we determined that we could put it to sleep (being unable to kill it), but that to do so would cause a wave of psychic, magical and spiritual power to wash out over the Island. We knew it could not kill Achramas, and from past experience I had (erroneously as it transpires) thought Louhi was tougher than that, so we warded ourselves and assaulted the brain. An amount of screaming from around the corner alerted us to the fact that Achramas had been nearly slain by the power, and that Louhi was dead.

This was not good, as we needed to kill Louhi in the ritual chamber to resolve the anomaly. Fortunately, we knew he had vitae, and decided to adopt the unpleasant but ultimately far easier course of action of restoring him to life and then killing him on the floor immediately afterwards. It wasn’t a fair fight or a glorious death, but then neither is murdering your younger sister in a horrible ritual because you’re mad at someone else. I was able to secure Louhi’s body and soul and am going to try and use the memories associated with the toys they abandoned and the papers they wrote to disentangle the souls of Ilmater and Mielikki whom he had consumed from his soul before it passes on in the normal manner of things – they have vitae and if I can recreate their bodies I may be able to bring them back, failing which at least they will be at rest. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve in that regard and I’ll speak to Romilda and see if Asa can assist at all, after all they were his Chosen in a way.

Chosen Achramas is as sane as can be expected now Ybog is asleep and Louhi destroyed, she’s strong and will endure, as she’d say, and we hope that she will in time be able to claim the mantle of the Reaver Lord and shape it into something less malign than most of its past wearers have done.

Port Miere started to return immediately Louhi died and the anomaly resolved, I believe its return being assisted by the Netter and Primal Sunlight if what we saw is accurate. We believe it will reconverge over the Dawn and be strongly part of Primus and the Empire once more.

Thanks to all involved, it’s been an interesting year, and we did a good thing.

It was a pleasure being part of the group. I can add another Old One to my list now.

I would mention for the sake of clarity should others return that the island was not the abode of the Old One but the Island was the Old One. Any trees or things we saw there were manifestations of the being's flesh.

I would be interested in knowing the whereabouts of the avatar. It's possible that now the Old One is dormant the avatar has followed, but it is not unknown for these beings to mark those it has 'touched' and it's spawn to hunt those marked. I've got enough of these things hunting me as it is.

Larkin

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Attention randomly typing monkeys. The reply button does not dispense bananas. That is all.